


Screaming Colour, Quiet Night

by MagusLibera



Series: Any Happy Stories [7]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Ada-Centric, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Character, Gen, Growing Up, Kid Fic, Panic Attacks, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Smoak Queen Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23428909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Ada is different right from the start. It makes her vulnerable but it also makes her stronger in so many ways. And it makes her siblings extra protective of her.Can be read as a one-shot or as part of the Any Happy Stories/SCoM universe. Previously titledThe Dreamer and the Inventor.
Relationships: Minor Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak - Relationship, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, background Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: Any Happy Stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601401
Comments: 27
Kudos: 53
Collections: Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive 2020





	Screaming Colour, Quiet Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is a pretty big thing for me. Today is World Autism Awareness Day (WHO tweeted about it. Please ignore everything about that tweet because it's a really bad representation and really poor advice) and to help people understand a little more about what it's like to be autistic, I decided to write this. Most autistic people, including myself aren't huge fans of being described as somebody 'with autism' because it's not something that you have, it's something that you are.
> 
> I wanted this to be as authentic as possible, so I have used some of the experiences that I and some of my loved ones have had as autistic people but it is important to me to make sure that everybody knows this IS NOT the be all and end all of being autistic. The autistic spectrum is vast and has a lot of aspects, not all of which I have represented here, but this means that there are infinite ways to be autistic and no two people will have the same experiences. Some people have more similar experiences, but it's still different for everybody. Autistic people are often perfectly capable of living relatively 'normal' lives, but some autistic people are not. Either way, it's beautiful and amazing and this is how we are born.
> 
> There are a million aspects of being autistic that I have not mentioned here and there are at least a thousand that I wanted to write about but I decided to keep it to this.
> 
> I love being autistic so I just wanted to share some of what makes it magical whilst also sharing some of the things that make life a bit harder. I hope you enjoy this and that you love Ada Smoak Queen as much as I do <3
> 
> [EDIT: I forgot to mention TW - Ada has a meltdown in this fic and suffers from panic attacks. She's okay, but the world can be a lot for her so she gets overwhelmed.]

Ada is different right from the start. Of course, she does not know this. How can one know that they are different to everybody else when they are a baby? But as she gets older and starts to observe the world around her, she sees it. When she talks to her parents, they describe to her the early signs and how they knew she was not the same.

No two children or people are the same. And that is not a bad thing. Ada knows that her being different is not bad. In so many ways, it is good, and her differences are no worse or better than the differences that her four siblings have from one another, but they are unique and far more profound. Because Ada is fundamentally different, everything about her is wired differently to how most people are wired.

She likes to think of it as a normal distribution. A bell shaped curve, perfectly symmetrical and with a peak in the centre and two tails. What is described as normal is what falls into the centre of the curve. Ada is an outlier, she sits in one of the tails, because Ada is autistic.

It is not something bad. It is just different. When she was in her mother’s womb and her brain started to develop, it did not follow the same patterns that most brains follow. It wired itself differently. And that makes a lot of things harder for Ada, but it also makes a lot of things easier. She thinks differently, she sees the world differently and sometimes that means that she gets things that others would consider easy wrong but sometimes it means that she finds answers that other people cannot see. She sees things that others do not notice. Sometimes, it is fun.

*************************

From discussions with her parents and siblings, Ada knows that she first started to display her differences as a baby. When she was being fed as a child, the person feeding her would have to stay perfectly still, quiet and calm because the minute that they moved or spoke or did anything other than hold her, she would stop eating and that would be that. It caused her parents a lot of stress, making both Felicity and Oliver highly anxious because Ada barely put on weight as a baby. It was just impossible to keep conditions right for her for long enough to get her well-fed in a house with three other young children.

She would also react strongly to stimuli. Bright lights would make her cry, noises that nobody else would consider loud or startling would send her screaming, she would panic whenever more than one person tried to get her attention. As she started eating solid foods, new issues arose.

Her development was fast. She was comprehending things long before she should have been able too, much faster than even her other siblings never mind the average. She could play advanced games, put together puzzles and knew her numbers and shapes and letters at a shockingly young age, she never crawled, she leapt straight into walking at about nine months old, she could climb before her first birthday. But she did not speak for a long time. She had clear comprehension, but never said a word to communicate, she struggled to know how. Once she did start talking, though, she did not stop. Just like her mother.

But as she started to move from milk to solid foods, new problems arose. She got over the movement thing and was perfectly capable of feeding herself but her tastes were extremely limited. With all of his infants, Oliver had refused to let them eat the ‘processed monstrosities stuffed with additives’ (his words) that were sold in stores. Instead, he would cook and mash up fresh vegetables himself, making his own mush for his children to eat. All of them had their preferences, but Ada’s were severely limited. There were only three meals that she would eat, and she would completely refuse anything else. The doctors told Oliver and Felicity to just let her not eat, they said that she would get hungry eventually and it would force her to get over her fussiness. They were wrong. Ada did get hungry, she screamed and whined because she was starving, but she would still not eat the food. She would completely starve herself, once going over a day without eating a thing before Oliver caved and fed her, realising that she would starve herself otherwise. After that incident, neither of them ever left her without food again, only preparing the meals that they knew she would eat because they knew that the doctors were, in Ada’s case, wrong.

It was more than fussiness though. A fact that Felicity discovered when Ada was about a year and a half old. Oliver set out to go on a trip with John, Sara, JJ, Connor and Mia (the only Smoak Queen who was deemed old enough at the time) and he left Felicity with enough pre made food for Ada to get her through. The problem was that, whilst Felicity was heating up the meal in the microwave, the glass shattered, filling a day’s worth of food with deadly shards. Desperate, Felicity bought the exact same meal from the shop even though she knew Oliver would be mad.

When Ada sat down to eat, knowing nothing about the food not having been made by her daddy, she took one sniff and said, “Momma, this not right.” Felicity had tensed up, immediately worried.

“Sure it is Baby, just take a bite.”

Ada had sniffled, “No, Momma, it smells wrong!”

“Just one bite, Ada-bug, please. For me?”

Ada tried a bite and burst into tears, “Ow, Momma! No! Bad, bad, bad! Want Daddy’s food!”

“What’s wrong with it, Bug? It’s your favourite.”

“No! Bitter, Momma, bad!”

Felicity had struggled to hold back tears, taking the food away from Ada and calling Oliver in a fit of fear. She explained the situation to him, “I don’t know how to get her to eat, she says it tastes bitter but I can’t tell the difference. Oliver, I think Ada’s hypersensitive.”

“So do I.” Oliver agreed, “She’s too attuned to everything to not be. Give her some of those bites that she likes, they’re not the healthiest but it’ll be better than nothing. I’ll be home soon, Honey.”

*************************

In her early years, Ada’s sleep schedule was completely off too. The afternoons were her sleepiest times – they still are but she has learnt to keep to a mostly diurnal sleep schedule as she has grown up – and she would be awake all night every night until she started preschool. After starting preschool, she had been forced to stay awake in the afternoons as she would want to play, and the exhaustion would mean that she would sleep through the night for the first time.

It was also at preschool that it became obvious that her hypersensitivity is a result of her being autistic. Back home, it had been hard to get a read on her social abilities because she was constantly surrounded by people who she loved and was loved by. She played with her siblings just fine and loved to cuddle with them. She may have played slightly differently to any of them, but she was more than happy to play.

She liked sitting with William and watching him work, taking in every little movement that he made and absorbing it like the sponge she was and still is. With Mia, she would love their games of imagination, running around the house like madwomen as they fought off their enemies and rolled around the floor as lions in a pride. She and Lucas had a special bond. He was always there for her, her rock whenever the world became too much for her. He had a way of making all of the chaos drown out in favour of his steady, soothing presence. Conversely, Tommy was her go to if she was feeling hyperactive or needed cheering up. No matter how busy he was, he would always find the time to make her smile. Even with their extended family, she was always comfortable and the only signs of any social issues were when she would tire out so quickly after having company.

But preschool was different. Preschool was new. New people, a new place, new sounds and smells and tastes and sights and feels and _everything was too much_ and her _family_ were _not there_ and _how was she supposed to calm down without Lucas_ and _who was supposed to help her learn if William was not there_ and _who would keep her safe if she could not be with Mia_ and _who could make her smile if not Tommy_ and _where was Momma_ and _why did Daddy leave_ and, and, _and…_ a hand fell onto her shoulder, fingertips barely brushing near her neck.

She screamed.

She curled up in a little ball with her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut and she screamed and screamed and _screamed_ because her head hurt and people kept _looking_ at her and it was _all just too much_. And there were people all around her trying to talk and _talk_ and _too much noise, too many people_ and _too much everything_. And she screamed until Daddy was there again. _Daddy, Daddy_ , Daddy’s big arms wrapping her up and she could hide her face in his chest so that all she could see was the dark fabric of his shirt, and she could press her ear against his chest and pull his big hand over her exposed ear so that the only sound was his strong heartbeat, and she could fill her nose with his familiar, comforting scent and nobody could look at her or touch her because Daddy was so big and he would keep her safe.

He took her home and spoke with Felicity that very night. Both of them felt extremely guilty for not thinking about how she might react to the new situation. They realised that Ada did not like change, something that they had not thought about before because Ada’s life up until that point had been fairly consistent. But the situation had clearly been too much, and they knew that Ada was going to need help to deal with the world around her. The next day, they had started the process of getting Ada’s diagnosis.

*************************

They had also came up with a plan to get Ada into preschool and school in a way that she would be more comfortable with. She had always been a happy, sociable child in small scale situations, in places where she felt safe, and her parents did not want her to miss out on the chance to make connections with other kids her own age.

Her dad took time away from his company, leaving it in the capable hands of Thea and Roy who had signed on with him after settling down in Bloomfield when they got married. Their eldest child was the same age as Ada and the two of them got along fantastically, so when they finally took Ada back to preschool, far better prepared than the first time, it was Oliver, Ada and Jonas who all went in. Just for an hour, to start with, when all of the other kids were already settled in and busy. Oliver would stay by Ada’s side the entire time as she and Jonas tentatively engaged in the activities of the day.

At first, Ada would not let go of her dad’s hand, clinging on for dear life and throwing herself into his arms whenever there was the slightest noise or somebody moved too quickly. But she slowly grew more confident, tentatively making friends with some of the other children, Jonas stood protectively by her side, and she started to settle in. Before long, she was staying for the entire day, letting Oliver retreat to the corners of the room and barely even acknowledging his presence as she ran around, happy. Eventually, he left her there for the first time since that first day. She was fine.

Her childhood became a series of that sort of thing. Any new situation, her Momma or Dad or sometimes even William would help her to familiarise herself with it, and as soon as she had the hang of it, she would be okay.

Being autistic was not only difficulties though. It had plenty of upsides. Mia always says that she has superpowers. When they had been little, and Mia had discovered that Ada’s senses were heightened, she immediately started comparing her little sister to various superheroes. “You’re like Spider-Gwen!” she had claimed at first, thrilled to have such a cool relative. Ada did not know if she was like Spider-Gwen or not, but she definitely did have good senses.

Ada realised that she was different when she was about six. She was in school at the time, and had been trying to make friends with somebody when they turned around and called her weird. They said that she was weird because she never looked at people when they were talking to her. They said that she was weird because she was younger and because she was always daydreaming. They said that it was weird that she would sometimes curl up into a ball and hide in the smallest, darkest corner of the room until somebody came to collect her.

It made her think. She did not look at people when they spoke to her, but she never knew where to look. Which eye? Why was that so intense, so intimate? Why did she have to if it made her uncomfortable? She was younger than her classmates, but in her family that was normal. At the time, she had only skipped one year of school. William had skipped two. She did like to daydream but how could she not? Her mind was so busy, so many thoughts and ideas always running through her brain, fantasies of what could be or whatever she had been reading about dancing behind her eyelids. Sometimes she babbled like Momma. Momma said it’s just because she had so many thoughts that some of them just had to get out and could not be stopped. And, yes, she did sometimes have to hide from the world. But that was only because there was so much happening in it. Sometimes it was just _too much_ , and her brain would hurt and she would not be able to handle that. But she realised that she never saw anybody else do that. Was she the only one? It seemed ridiculous to her that she might be.

Before she could say anything though, the other child pushed her hard, sending her onto her bottom with a thud. Ada did not understand. Why were they being _so mean_? The sun glared into her eyes, the thudding of feet around her became a cacophony in her head, the words of those kids echoed through her mind and she could feel a pressure, choking her chest where they had pushed her. Unfortunately for those children, Mia had seen everything and she made them know _exactly_ how angry she was. With Tommy cheering her on and Lucas picking Ada up, tucking her into his arms and guiding her away from everything.

She cried into her mom’s arms that night, and her parents talked to her about exactly why she was different and why that was a good thing, not a bad thing. She never felt ashamed of her differences again after that.

*************************

Ada never has hated being autistic. In fact, she loves it. Her brain works differently, but that is a beautiful thing. If everybody’s brains worked the same, the world would be a boring place. William says that Ada is the human form of cinnamon. She makes everything more fun and just generally better.

The differences in her brain has other upsides. She is smarter than average. A lot smarter. And the average she is smarter than is not the average for all children her age, it is the average for her siblings. She skipped kindergarten, hopping straight into first grade. Then she skipped fourth grade, and then seventh grade and also freshman year. In the end, she graduated from high school at fourteen, though she had left school in her junior year, when the stress and anxiety over being thirteen and having to deal with being different to everybody else had finally gotten to her, making it safer for her to study from home.

Ada had figured out what she wants to do with her life when she was seven. She had been watching William code, and had thought about how passionate he was about it, making her think about what she was passionate about. Animals, _Harry Potter_ , _Star Wars_ , inventing, drawing. She was into a lot. But she knew, there was nothing that occupied her mind more than inventing.

She is constantly inventing. Always has been. She dreams up ideas in her head, thinking of things that nobody else could think of and all she wants to do is to make it. She spends hours thinking about how it would be possible, how it would work. She has won more than one science fair by making some of her thoughts a reality. One of which was a working model of the _Millennium Falcon_.

Figuring it out, how things will go together and function, it is one of the most satisfying things in Ada’s life. She adores it. She adores the entire process. So she keeps doing it.

*************************

Her parents had been nice with her siblings and let them go to university alone at sixteen, but Ada is fourteen and she has her own struggles so they are unwilling to risk it. They work out a system in which she can attend MIT only for essential classes and do the rest online at home, so that she can commute to and from the university on the three days that she has to go in whilst still living at home. She takes computer science and engineering at university, learning the ins and outs of technology over six years that gain her a bachelors, master and doctorate and by the time she is twenty, she leaves Bloomfield and makes her way into the world.

That is not to say that life is not still hard. It is. She still gets overwhelmed. She still has meltdowns and panic attacks and depressive episodes. But it is also good. She gets to do what she loves and she does it well. She can deal with being overwhelmed much better now and is able to work through her mental health in a healthy way. She is happy.

She takes a position at Smoak Tech, grateful that it is her family’s company because she knows that they will treat her right. She does not want a leadership role, nor does she want to work in a team. She has tried those things and they are not fun, they are stressful and she cannot handle them. And she knows better than to take on something that she cannot handle. But her credentials are impressive enough that the head of Research and Development gives her a lab of her own. All of the resources that she could need are there and Ada sets to making all of the ideas that she has dreamt up over the years a reality.

She even designs Mia’s new bow. A new, better memory processor for William. A new cooker for Lucas. A machine that can safely navigate neural surgery for Tommy. She makes all of the devices that Team Arrow use whilst they go out at night and whilst she still has her moments. Whilst she still always will, she knows that her life would be completely different if she had a neurotypical brain and she knows that she would not change her life for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Autism Awareness Week is also happening right now. The [National Autistic Society](https://autism.org.uk) ([@Autism](https://twitter.com/Autism) on Twitter) is a great place to start if you want to know more about what it's like to be autistic or love somebody who is and my dms are open on Twitter if you want any recommendations or just to chat about anything. I'm [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).
> 
> Please stay safe, wash your hands and stay inside as much as possible. Please remember your fellow humans who will also be going through a tough time right now.
> 
> (P.S. Yes, I did shoehorn in another Q&C fic prompt. Well, it is a KidFic isn't it?)


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